The important biological roles that peptides play as hormones, enzyme inhibitors, substrates, neurotransmitters, and neuromediators has led to the widespread use of peptides in medicinal chemistry as therapeutic agents. Through binding to receptors or enzymes, peptides are able to influence cell-cell communication and control vital cell functions such as metabolism, immune defense and reproduction. Babine et al., Chem. Rev. 1997, 97, 1359). Unfortunately, the utility of peptides as drugs is severely limited by several factors, including their rapid degradation by peptidases under physiological conditions, their poor cell permeability, and their lack of binding specificity resulting from conformational flexibility.
In response to these unfavorable characteristics of peptide drugs, many research groups have developed strategies for the design and synthesis of chemical compounds, known as “peptidomimetics”, in which sensitive peptide moieties are removed and replaced with more robust functionalities. In particular, researchers have sought to improve peptide stability and cell permeability by replacing the amide functionality with groups such as hydroxyethylene, (E)-alkenes, carba groups and phosphonamide groups (see, Gante, J. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 1994, 33, 1699-1720, and references cited therein).
Another approach that researchers have taken in the development of peptide drugs is the study of, initiation of, and retention of peptide secondary structures. These secondary structures, α-helices, β-sheets, turns, and loops, are essential conformational components for peptides and proteins because bioactive conformations are fixed to a high degree by such structural elements. Because of the biological importance of these secondary structures, the development of novel structures incorporating these secondary structures has been a subject of intense research (see, for example, R. M. J. Liskamp, Recl. Trav. Chim. Pays-Bas 1994, 113, 1; Giannis, T. Kolter, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 1993, 32, 1244; P. D. Bailey, Peptide Chemistry, Wiley, N.Y., 1990, p. 182). In particular, the formation of α-helices by peptides has been of interest because many biologically important protein interactions, such as p53/MDM2 and Bcl-X1/Bak, are mediated by one protein donating a helix into a cleft of its α-helix-accepting partner. Unfortunately, it has been very difficult to mimic the approximately 12 amino acids (i.e., three turns of an alpha helix) required to form a stabilized isolated helical peptide. As described in “Bioorganic Chemistry: Peptides and Proteins”, Chapter 12, Peptide Mimetics, Nakanishi and Kahn, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference, most of the effort in the design and synthesis of α-helix mimetics has centered around N-termination initiation motifs. Furthermore, studies have been undertaken to understand the mechanisms of α-helix formation by peptides, and thus studies of helix-stabilizing side chain interactions, and template-nucleated α-helix formation have been investigated (see, J. Martin Scholtz and Robert L. Baldwin, “The Mechanism of α-Helix Formation by Peptides, Ann. Rev. Biophys. Biomol. Struct. 1992, 21, 95, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference) in an attempt to understand α-helix formation to aid in the future development of stabilized α-helix structures.
Clearly, it would be desirable to develop novel methods to generate stabilized α-helical structures, as well as other secondary structures, to enable the investigation of complex structure-function relationships in proteins and ultimately to enable the development of novel therapeutics incorporating specific stabilized secondary structure motifs.